Chapter 30: One-Click Cleaning Machine
It was the best egg waffle she had ever eaten.
’Mmm... I want to eat them again tomorrow.’
Bai Wanwan swallowed hard, warning herself not to lower herself for a mere snack.
This place, the Lower City District, was so dirty, chaotic, and run-down that one visit was more than enough. If Chen Cheng hadn’t made Shen Lu sound so pathetic, she never would have driven her new car all the way out here just to gloat.
’Oh, right. Chen Cheng.’
’That little bitch. She must resent me for getting the car, so she deliberately leaked information about Shen Lu, hoping I’d wreck my new Dog Hero-themed sports car.’
’What a vicious woman. If she can’t have something, she’ll just destroy someone else’s.’
’In gym class tomorrow, I’m going to knock her flat on her face!’
...
Shen Lu unlocked the door with her key, slipped inside, and slammed it shut with a BANG, blocking all the ill-intentioned stares from the outside.
Shen Lu switched on the light and walked to the bedside, carrying her things.
Fu Cheng’s right eye was half-open. He was actually awake.
Shen Lu wasn’t quite used to seeing Fu Cheng awake, and she greeted him a little stiffly.
"Uh... I’m back."
Fu Cheng couldn’t speak. He just gazed at her quietly, a faint hint of concern in his eyes.
He had heard everything Bai Wanwan said at the stall. Although Shen Lu’s reaction had been placid, Fu Cheng figured she must be very upset.
"Let me change your dressings before it gets completely dark," Shen Lu said. She washed her hands with a bit of water and sat down on the edge of the bed. "After I’ve changed the dressings and gauze, I’ll make dinner."
She started by changing the dressing on his left leg. With her head lowered, her eyelashes cast a small shadow, and the unconscious pursing of her pink lips showed she wasn’t as calm as she appeared.
Of course, Shen Lu couldn’t remain completely calm. This was a mangled, severed leg, gone from near the top of the thigh. The stump was jagged, as if it had been bitten off by something.
The skin bore irregular, dark-red patterns, like a cracked riverbed.
Shen Lu desperately wanted to ask what on earth this was, but Fu Cheng couldn’t make a sound. It would be pointless to ask, so she could only keep her questions to herself.
She wiped off the residual medicinal powder with a damp cloth, cleaned the area again with a saline solution, reapplied the powder, and wrapped it all in fresh gauze.
Awkward the first time, familiar the second. By her third time, Shen Lu felt like she could already be considered an expert.
Fu Cheng also had a wound on his abdomen. It looked like he had been injured by something sharp—a long gash stretched across his abs, stitched up with catgut sutures.
The first time Shen Lu changed Fu Cheng’s dressings, she was in a bit of a panic. The second time, she spent most of her energy overcoming her fear of the mangled limbs. By today, she finally had the presence of mind to notice other things.
Fu Cheng had attended the Imperial Military Academy. Generally, students who graduated from there went on to become military officers, but fundamental physical training was still an essential part of the curriculum.
So, Fu Cheng was no weakling; he had well-proportioned, solid muscles.
Shen Lu had never been in a relationship, but she had seen plenty of eye candy online. She liked the massive, brawny types, but she had a soft spot for leaner, more defined muscles.
And as it happened, Fu Cheng was the latter type.
The wound on his abdomen was certainly horrifying, but it was manageable now that it was stitched up.
Gazing at Fu Cheng’s tantalizingly shaped abs, Shen Lu felt a little urge to touch them.
’Don’t get the wrong idea,’ she told herself. ’It’s just simple curiosity about a fine set of muscles.’
Shen Lu bit her lip, wrestling with the idea for a moment, but ultimately gave up.
’Fu Cheng couldn’t fight back if she were to touch him, but taking advantage of an injured man like that would be a bit monstrous.’
’She, Shen Lu, was not some kind of degenerate overcome by lust!’
Fu Cheng didn’t know what Shen Lu was doing. He only knew she had been staring at his abdomen for quite a while. ’Don’t tell me the wound has worsened,’ he thought.
But he hadn’t felt the wound on his abdomen getting any worse.
To make it easier to wrap the gauze, Shen Lu helped Fu Cheng sit up, propping him against the wall.
She reached her arms around his waist and bandaged the wound as quickly as possible.
Fu Cheng lowered his eyes, his gaze landing on the fluffy head of hair before his chest, and a strange feeling washed over him.
’Wait,’ he thought. ’After she deals with the right arm, she’s going to change the dressing on my head, isn’t she?’
Remembering the awkward scene from last time, Fu Cheng closed his eyes in advance.
Noticing his eyes were closed, Shen Lu let out an imperceptible sigh of relief, and her movements became more natural and relaxed.
"He can fall asleep even like this?" Shen Lu figured that if his eyes were closed, he must be asleep. "With injuries this severe, doesn’t it hurt? Or maybe this powder has a pain-relieving effect?"
’This really is a strange world,’ she mused.
’A twisted social structure, highly developed medical and mechanical civilizations, soil where nothing green can grow, and extremely scarce water resources...’
Speaking of water, she needed to check on her green onions.
After she finished changing his dressings, Shen Lu gently laid Fu Cheng back down and went to the windowsill to check the flowerpot.
She had watered it before leaving in the morning, but it was already a little dry now. Moisture seemed to evaporate particularly fast here.
Shen Lu scooped some water from the wastewater bucket to moisten the soil, then redeemed some fruit from the system.
’I won’t cook tonight,’ she decided. ’We’ll just have some fruit.’
Shen Lu ate a banana herself, then used a spoon to scrape an apple into a mash to feed Fu Cheng.
Fu Cheng’s eyes widened in shock.
’The apple is also effective on my injuries!’
This discovery shattered his previous conclusion. Just two days ago, he had deduced that the water Shen Lu procured from some unknown source was the key to his recovery. But this apple... it had the same effect.
Fu Cheng was baffled.
He desperately wanted to ask Shen Lu where she got these things.
Or rather, who was she going to see every morning when she left?
What was their relationship? What kind of transaction had they made?
Fu Cheng was intensely curious, and intensely frustrated.
’When on earth will I be able to speak again? When will I be able to stand up?’
’I really don’t want to lie here being useless forever.’
After feeding Fu Cheng, Shen Lu sat cross-legged on the sofa, munching on an apple, and silently prompted the system for a lottery draw.
She hadn’t used yesterday’s Lottery Ticket, so including today’s, she had two in total.
With a DING, the lottery results appeared.
[Congratulations, Host, you have drawn Prize #311 from the blind box: one One-Touch Cleaning Machine.]
[Congratulations, Host, you have drawn Prize #101 from the blind box: one Advanced Secret Recipe for Braised Dishes.]
She didn’t need to check to know what the Advanced Secret Recipe for Braised Dishes was, but she was exceptionally curious about the One-Touch Cleaning Machine.
[One-Touch Cleaning Machine: Washes up to three kilograms of ingredients at a time, simplifying your prep work. In just three easy steps, you can have clean and fresh ingredients!]
’In other words, I’ll never have to wash vegetables again. Is that what this means?’
Shen Lu took a huge bite of her apple, her eyes crinkling in delight.
’It doesn’t just save me the trouble of washing vegetables, it also saves water. This thing is a real treasure!’
CRUNCH, CRUNCH. After finishing the apple, Shen Lu buried the core and peel in the flowerpot as fertilizer, then walked over to the wall and materialized the One-Touch Cleaning Machine.
It had a silver-white casing and a high-tech look, actually resembling a certain brand of in-sink dishwasher.
However, her One-Touch Cleaning Machine didn’t require any plumbing hookups and had only one function: washing produce.
It was getting late, so she decided not to mess with it tonight. Shen Lu patted her new treasure and thought, ’Don’t worry, I’m going to use the hell out of you tomorrow!’